The present invention refers to a swivel bearing bracket for vehicle sun visors and to means for affixing the bracket to a vehicle ceiling.
The bracket is comprised of a plastic injection molding including a flange-like base body and it has a support dome formed on its rear side. The dome has a passage hole which also extends through the base body for receiving the swivel shaft of the visor.
Swivel bearing brackets for sun visors serve to receive one arm of an L-shaped sun visor shaft in a manner permitting swinging rotation of the visor around a first arm of the visor shaft. The second arm of the visor shaft is mounted in the sun visor body. This enables the sun visor body to be swung either in front of the windshield or toward a side window of the vehicle. While it is in its normal position in front of the windshield, the sun visor is supported by two shafts, the L-shaped sun visor shaft and an outer support shaft on the visor body which is detachably engaged in an outer support bracket which is attached on the vehicle ceiling. The weight of the sun visor body, when it is in its position swung in front of the side window, rests exclusively on the L-shaped sun visor shaft, the swivel bearing bracket and the attachment of the bracket to the ceiling. For this reason, dependable fastening of the swivel bearing bracket on the ceiling of the vehicle is important. Therefore, the bracket is fastened to the ceiling by screws, as shown, for instance, in German patent publication 25 44 969 B2. In that case, however, the bracket must be positioned very carefully in order to align with the screw holes. This installation process has proven to be lengthy and tedious. Further, it is particularly disadvantageous in the traditional type of attachment for the considerable mounting work which is caused by the necessary screwing in of the parts, with the resulting expense.
German patent publications 23 41 940 A1 or 29 39 124 A1, disclose attaching the swivel bearing bracket to a vehicle body without screws. But, these proposals have not gone beyond the experimental stage, i.e. they have never entered into practical use, because of serious technical defects.